If you remove a 301-re-direct, will there be a corresponding drop in traffic?
-
We built a better version of a search results page and re-directed from the old search results page to the landing page, and are seeing a huge uptick in traffic. Wondering if we remove the re-direct and 404 the original search results page if we'll see a drop in traffic.
I ran the search results page through open site explorer and Google Webmaster tools, and there aren't many links, but the search results page used to see quite a bit of of traffic over the past couple of years.
-
If you are seeing a large increase in traffic as the result of the redirects, then removing them will reverse that shift in traffic.
If it's SE referrals from long tail keywords going through the redirect, then you're going to definitely feel the hit from moving to 404's. Sure, your newly created pages may replace that traffic eventually, but the 301's are helping them do that now. Just the traffic standpoint is one reason, but passing any and (dang near all) of the link equity through to the new pages in the process.
-
I understand the "don't fix it if its broken" -but, I am wondering if there is any documentation about removing 301 re-directs after the proper URL is indexed.
-
I would imagine that you would see drop n traffic if you began to receive traffic immediately a upon creating the 301. I would leave it in place unless theres a really compelling reason (that I can't think of) to remove it.
-
Why fix it if it isn't broken?
Meaning, why do you want to remove the redirects? I see little benefit from serving a 404 page in stead of redirecting to a better suited landing page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
To remove or not remove a redirected page from index
We have a promotion landing page which earned some valuable inbound links. Now that the promotion is over, we have redirected this page to a current "evergreen" page. But in the search results page on Google, the original promotion landing page is still showing as a top result. When clicked, it properly redirects to the newer evergreen page. But, it's a bit problematic for the original promo page to show in the search results because the snippet mentions specifics of the promo which is no longer active. So, I'm wondering what would be the net impact of using the "removal request " tool for the original page in GSC. If we don't use that tool, what kind of timing might we expect before the original page drops out of the results in favor of the new redirected page? And if we do use the removal tool on the original page, will that negate what we are attempting to do by redirecting to the new page, with regard to preserving inbound link equity?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoelevated0 -
Migrated Domain, 90% Drop in Organic Traffic, HELP!!!!
One week ago we migrated our old domain www.nyc-officespace-leader.com to https://www.metro-manhattan.com/. Our organic search traffic from Google has dropped about 90%. Is this normal? If so, how long should it take to recover? We filed a submitted a domain change request on Webmaster tools one week ago. We are noticing that many of the www.nyc-officespace-leader.com pages are still indexed which seems strange after a week. To complicate things, we filed a disavow file on April 9th for spammy links that pointed the NYC site. We filed the identical disavow of those links to the new Metro domain to ensure low quality links don't point to the new domain. Prior to making the domain change request, we migrated 30-40 non critical pages from NYC to Metro domains. Webmaster Tools indicated that the traffic was normal on the migrated pages. We then migrated remaining pages and filed the domain change request on April 4th. It is after April 4th that traffic and ranking declined. I would like to mention that there was no change in content; identical content was migrated from Metro to NYC This does not seem normal. Research prior to the migration indicated that if proper steps were taken it should proceed with limited disruption in traffic and ranking. Any ideas on how to remedy this situation? Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
My direct traffic went up and my organic traffic went down. Help!
So on Oct. 21, our direct traffic increased 3x and our organic traffic decreased 3x. And it has been that way ever since. Almost like they flip flopped. Additionally, that was the same day I started retargeting to our site. I have tagged all the links from the ads and they're being counted as google paid clicks in GA. And our accounts are linked. I am just dumbfounded as to how this could happen.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_OWPP1 -
How to measure traffic for a keyword
Sitting in Country A I want to see how much traffic a particular keyword receives in Country B. Whats the best way to do it? Also, will the search results differ if I am analyzing the above sitting in Country A viz-a-viz Country B. In other words, will the IP of the country I am making the search from play a role in the results?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__0 -
Drop in indexed pages!
Hi everybody! I've been working on http://thewilddeckcompany.co.uk/ for a little while now. Until recently, everything was great - good rankings for the key terms of 'bird hides' and 'pond dipping platforms'. However, rankings have tanked over the past few days. I can't point my finger at it yet, but a site:thewilddeckcompany.co.uk search shows only three pages have been indexed. There's only 10 on the site, and it was fine beforehand. Any advice would be much appreciated,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Do I need to use canonicals if I will be using 301's?
I just took a job about three months and one of the first things I wanted to do was restructure the site. The current structure is solution based but I am moving it toward a product focus. The problem I'm having is the CMS I'm using isn't the greatest (and yes I've brought this up to my CMS provider). It creates multiple URL's for the same page. For example, these two urls are the same page: (note: these aren't the actual urls, I just made them up for demonstration purposes) http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Omnipress
http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/bossman.cmsx (I know this is terrible, and once our contract is up we'll be looking at a different provider) So clearly I need to set up canonical tags for the last two pages that look like this: http://www.omnipress.com/boss-man" /> With the new site restructure, do I need to put a canonical tag on the second page to tell the search engine that it's the same as the first, since I'll be changing the category it's in? For Example: http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/ will become http://www.website.com/home/MEET-OUR-TEAM/team-leaders/boss-man My overall question is, do I need to spend the time to run through our entire site and do canonical tags AND 301 redirects to the new page, or can I just simply redirect both of them to the new page? I hope this makes sense. Your help is greatly appreciated!!0 -
Removed Site-wide links
Hi there, I have recently removed quite a lot of site-wide links leaving the only link on homepage's of some websites, since doing this I have seen a dramatic drop on my keywords, going from position 2-3 to nowhere. Has anyone else experienced anything like this, should I expect to see a return on these keywords? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
What happens with a 301 redirected page?
Hi All, What happens with an indexed page that I 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is it removed from the Google index after a while? Thanks0